The Poultry Keeper

jooles · Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2006 4:29 pm Post subject: What brand of food?

I've been feeding my chooks Marriage's layers mash which I buy from Thornes where I got my first girls from. I have tried Dodson & Horrell mash but it was really fine and powdery and the girls didn't take to it at all.

The Marriage's is great except I've found a place much closer to me selling the Smallholder Range (Layers Meal) for about £2 a bag cheaper.

Does anyone use the Smallholder Layers Meal and if so is it fine and powdery or does it have bits in it? It's just that I don't want to buy a whole sack of it only to find the chooks aren't keen!

Knobby · Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2006 4:35 pm Post subject:

Ive just bought Smallholders Layers Pellets for the first time at the weekend, they usually have Dodson & Horrell layers pellets, and I have noticed the Smallholders is much smaller pellets than the usual.... Wink

Spose it will make it easier for the littleuns to eat !!

CP · Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2006 5:28 pm Post subject:

Don't feed ours the mash - we have D&H layers pellets, so can't help I'm afraid. Confused

Lisa · Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2006 6:44 pm Post subject:

Hmmmm.... had a simillar problem to you Jooles. I got a small 3kg bag of un-named mash from a feed place near my Mum. The girls liked it so much I bought a big sack of mash from my local place assuming it would be the same. Yuk! Just the fine powder you described and the girls hated it. They did eat more of it when I fed it wet (ie made into a damp, crumbly mix with some water, milk or left over water from cooking veg). But dry they just turned their little beaks up at it. I don't mind feeding it wet, but then you have to do fresh every day. Maybe even twice a day when the weather is hot as it can go off really quickly...

I don't have the bag, but I'm almost certain that it would have been the Smallholder range, as that is what my local place mainly stocks. Put it this way, I wouldn't buy another bag of mash from that range unless I could see it first.

I now get the marriages mash from Thornes as I want to feed organic and its the nearest place I can find that sells organic mash.... though near isn't quite the right term Rolling Eyes

Its expensive enough as it is, but when you add on the petrol Confused

...

Still, its a great excuse to got to a garden centre and poultry centre all in one Very Happy

and with only 4 chooks I don't have to go there very often.

fenwoman · Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2006 10:35 pm Post subject:

I never feed dry mash. nasty stuff IMO I have had birds inhale it and end up with lung problems, it blows about in the wind and it can cake on a beak. I either feed pellets, much cleaner and tidier altogether or feed the mash as a mash with hot water added, in cold weather. At this time of year I tend to feed mixed corn only or with some flaked peas added for extra protein since I don't force mine to lay all year round and they hardly lay at all so don't need a high protein layers ration.
They do get fresh stuff daily though. Today was apples, yesterday a whole white cabbage to peck at, tomorrow might be carrots.

summayah · Joined: 14 Apr 2005 Posts: 4289 Location: luton

I went to the local children's animal farm, just looking around and they seemed to be feeding their pol or almost pol pellets, but they were only about one third the size of the usual pellets ~ not sure what or whose they were.

Lisa · Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 8:40 am Post subject:

Could they have been growers pellets? The last lot I used were smaller than the layers pellets? I just assumed (no idea if its true though) that as they would start these when the birds were a lot smaller, the pellets would be smaller too?

jooles · Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 9:56 am Post subject:

summayah · Joined: 14 Apr 2005 Posts: 4289 Location: luton

The last time I bought growers pellets, they were the same size as the layers. Where is Thornes?

Lisa · Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 8:27 am Post subject:

Letchworth, Hertfordshire:

www.thornes.biz

madslg · Joined: 16 Nov 2005 Posts: 298 Location: Farnham

I have fed mine a range of brands of layers pellets that seem to come in all sorts of sizes but they still go dashing at them like they have been starved!

As for the mash, when i do buy it i get it in little see through bags at a place called Annas. I could not tell you any more about it than that but the oven readys are certainly enjoying it!